To avoid these ads, REGISTER NOW!

Tracing shallow buried wires

Innovate1

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 28, 2014
Messages
4,313
Location
Illinois near St. Louis, Missouri
Put in a buried wire dog fence and was wanting to find out where the Spectrum cable was. Should have done a locate but that was the only thing that might have been shallow enough to worry about. If it was really close to the surface I thought a toner might work. But trying it on the dog fence in an area already installed had good signal where it was exposed but 2" down in a groove and NOTHING. I could see the wire laying there so was surprised that it totally killed the signal. Ended up disconnecting the cable at the house and the connection box toward the street and hooked it in as part of the dog fence and used the collar to locate the coax. Dug around a bit with a small trowel and didn't find it so determined it was buried deeper. Wish I had been here when they buried it. It was deep enough I didn't have to worry about it. Just interesting it was so deep - have read lots of reports of it barely covered - and also interesting how the toner completely failed.
 
To avoid these ads, REGISTER NOW!

75gmck25

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 21, 2014
Messages
1,334
Location
Alexandria, VA
One time during a trip to Sunbelt Rental I saw that they had a buried cable locator you could rent. It might have the "juice" to locate your cable more effectively than what you already have.
 
To avoid these ads, REGISTER NOW!

T444e

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 25, 2016
Messages
467
Call for a locate, cable is considered a utility and should be marked. I have hit my share of cable and phone, all extremely shallow. On time hit cable less than 2" below grade. The service tech that came out for the repair, I was still on site, was was laying into me as my employer didn't call in a locate. He shut up real quick when I pointed out it was an inch below grade.

Sorry, read the first post too quick.
 
OP
I

Innovate1

Well-known member
Joined
Jul 28, 2014
Messages
4,313
Location
Illinois near St. Louis, Missouri
In this particular case I could have gotten a utility locate. But I have other buried wires that would not be covered by utility locate. The local Sunbelt rental place has a locator for $90 for 4 hours. I use them for other things and they rent for the whole weekend for 1 day charge which is great. But it would be nice if I had some way to do it without renting equipment.
 
To avoid these ads, REGISTER NOW!
Top Bottom